Even her mother was rejoiced and proud; even with her crazed brain and broken heart, the sight of sweet, peaceful infancy brought light to her.  All the old ways of holding a baby, of hushing it to sleep, of tenderly guarding its little limbs from injury, came back, like the habits of her youth, to Bell; and she was never so happy or so easy in her mind, or so sensible and connected in her ideas, as when she had Sylvia’s baby in her arms.

It was a pretty sight to see, however familiar to all of us such things may be—­the pale, worn old woman, in her quaint, old-fashioned country dress, holding the little infant on her knees, looking at its open, unspeculative eyes, and talking the little language to it as though it could understand; the father on his knees, kept prisoner by a small, small finger curled round his strong and sinewy one, and gazing at the tiny creature with wondering idolatry; the young mother, fair, pale, and smiling, propped up on pillows in order that she, too, might see the wonderful babe; it was astonishing how the doctor could come and go without being drawn into the admiring vortex, and look at this baby just as if babies came into the world every day.

‘Philip,’ said Sylvia, one night, as he sate as still as a mouse in her room, imagining her to be asleep.  He was by her bed-side in a moment.

’I’ve been thinking what she’s to be called.  Isabella, after mother; and what were yo’r mother’s name?’

‘Margaret,’ said he.

’Margaret Isabella; Isabella Margaret.  Mother’s called Bell.  She might be called Bella.’

‘I could ha’ wished her to be called after thee.’

She made a little impatient movement.

’Nay; Sylvia’s not a lucky name.  Best be called after thy mother and mine.  And I want for to ask Hester to be godmother.’

’Anything thou likes, sweetheart.  Shall we call her Rose, after Hester Rose?’

‘No, no!’ said Sylvia; ’she mun be called after my mother, or thine, or both.  I should like her to be called Bella, after mother, because she’s so fond of baby.’

‘Anything to please thee, darling.’

’Don’t say that as if it didn’t signify; there’s a deal in having a pretty name,’ said Sylvia, a little annoyed.  ‘I ha’ allays hated being called Sylvia.  It were after father’s mother, Sylvia Steele.’

‘I niver thought any name in a’ the world so sweet and pretty as Sylvia,’ said Philip, fondly; but she was too much absorbed in her own thoughts to notice either his manner or his words.

‘There, yo’ll not mind if it is Bella, because yo’ see my mother is alive to be pleased by its being named after her, and Hester may be godmother, and I’ll ha’ t’ dove-coloured silk as yo’ gave me afore we were married made up into a cloak for it to go to church in.’

‘I got it for thee,’ said Philip, a little disappointed.  ’It’ll be too good for the baby.’

’Eh! but I’m so careless, I should be spilling something on it?  But if thou got it for me I cannot find i’ my heart for t’ wear it on baby, and I’ll have it made into a christening gown for mysel’.  But I’ll niver feel at my ease in it, for fear of spoiling it.’